The European Union had previously accused Moscow of “blatant interference” and of subjecting the aircraft to electronic jamming.
Flightradar24, a website specializing in flight tracking, has denied claims from various media outlets and EU officials suggesting that the aircraft carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen experienced GPS signal jamming.
On Monday, the monitoring service stated on X that the aircraft transporting the EU Commission chief to Bulgaria on Sunday maintained good GPS signal quality for its entire route. The service also noted that the flight arrived just nine minutes behind schedule, correcting some media reports that erroneously claimed “the aircraft was in a holding pattern for 1 hour.”
It further added, “The aircraft’s transponder reported good GPS signal quality from take-off to landing.”
The Financial Times initially reported these alleged GPS issues, citing unnamed sources who claimed that pilots experienced signal blackouts so severe they were forced to use “paper maps” for landing. These sources also implied Russia was responsible for the supposed incident. When reached for comment by the FT, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated the reported allegations were untrue.
The claims received official confirmation on Monday. Both the EU and Bulgarian authorities attributed the blame to Moscow.
EU Commission spokeswoman Arianna Podesta stated at a press conference in Brussels, “We can indeed confirm that there was GPS jamming, but the plane landed safely in Bulgaria. We have received information from the Bulgarian authorities that they suspect that this was due to blatant interference by Russia.”
The Bulgarian government also seemed to support the claims that the pilots were forced to rely on alternate navigation tools during their landing at Plovdiv International Airport.
In a statement, the government declared, “During the flight carrying European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to Plovdiv, the satellite signal transmitting information to the plane’s GPS navigation system was neutralized.” It further added, “To ensure the flight’s safety, air control services immediately offered an alternative landing method using terrestrial navigation tools.”